Improvement in hydraulic current-wheels



NrTsD STATES PATENT FFICE.

IVARREN P. IING, OF GREENVVICH, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT IN HYDRAULIC CURRENT-WHEELS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 403, dated September22, 1837.

To @ZZ whom, t nut/,zj concern:

Be it known that I, WARREN P. WING, of Greenwich, in the county ofHampshire and State of lvlassachnsetts, have invented certainImprovements in the Hydraulic Current- IVheel, by means of which theflowing of a current or tide may be more efficiently applied to theraising of Water or to other purposes for which power is required; and Ido hereby declare that the following is a full and exact descriptionthereof.

For the sake of facility of description I will give the form anddimensions of one which I have' put into operation.

The wheel consists of a shaft upon which are placed flights or buckets,against which the water is to strike and give motion to the shaft, theflights being placed obliquely thereon.

In the accompanying drawing, a a is the shaft of the wheel, which isthirty feet long and eight inches in diameter. Its form is octagonal.Into four of the sides I insert seven flights or buckets b h l), makingtwenty-eight in the whole. At one end of the shaft the flights aretwentyinches long and at the other end forty, the intermediate flightsincreasing equally in length from the shortest to the longest. They areeach about eight inches wide near the shaft and spread out in a fanlikeform, so that their extremities occupy.

about one-eighth of the circle or circumference of the wheel. Theflights or buckets are flat on the face, and they are set so as 'to forman angle with the axis of the shaft usually of about thirty degrees; butthis angle will vary according to the velocity of the current andaccordingly as the shaft varies more or less from the line of directionof the current.

A distinguishing characteristic of my Wheel is the placing of the shaftso as to form an angle with the direction of the stream both verticallyand horizontally.

The buckets or ights may be ofl iron or other material,

The Wheel is to be placed so far below the surface as to be out of theway of oating ice, &c.

The shaft, as above intimated, is to be placed obliquely to thedirection of the current. In a wheel of the size mentioned it may Varyabout six feet from this line, both horizontally and vertically, bywhich means the force of the Water upon the flights will be greatlyincreased. Two or more such shafts may be coupled together, and toprevent inconvenience from their great depth in the water the angles ofthe shafts with the current may be reversed, so that whatever theirnumbers their depths below the surface will remain the same. From thegudgeons of the shafts the power may be communicated in any convenientway.

I do not claim the employment of wheels,

consisting of a shaft furnished with iiights or buckets, these havingbeen usedybut What I do claim is- The increase of the length of theiiights so as to give to the outline of the wheel the form of thefrustum of a cone, and also the placing of such shafts in the current soas to form a decided angle therewith, in the manner described. f

IV. P. WING.

Witnesses:

LINToN THoRN, W. THOMPSON,

